The present invention relates to an article feeding apparatus. More particularly, the invention concerns apparatus including a specially configured container-handling mechanism for conveying articles, as for example bottles, cans or cartons, between operating stations in a processing system. The system and equipment described herein is particularly useful in conveying and manipulating cans in a food processing system between the can filler and closure equipment and the sterilizer.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/878.693, filed May 5, 1992 by J. Baranowski, the inventor herein, and assigned to the instant assignee describes a container handling system operable between the can filler equipment in a food processing system and a hydrostatic sterilizer in such system. As described in that patent application, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference, the concerned food processing system contains, in relevant part, a conveyor operative to transfer cans in an axis-upright condition from the filler and closure station to a toppler. The toppler operates to meter the cans, to place then in predetermined spacing suitable to accommodate the can-toppling maneuver and, thereafter, to angularly displace the cans ninety degrees from a vertical to horizontal altitude from whence they can be transferred as a "can stick" consisting of a predetermined number of cans to a carrier tray for delivery to the sterilizer.
Front- and side-load hydrostatic sterilizer equipment, including conveying, toppling and carrying components of current design, have a maximum available processing capacity of almost 1,200 cans per minute. Feed systems of the single line-type, such as that described in the aforementioned patent application, are incapable of being utilized reliably at rates significantly greater than 600 cans per rain due to the high speeds at which the cans must travel and the inability to properly monitor the cans, to meter them, and to prevent damage thereto at such speeds.
Conveying systems are well known in which articles are effectively moved at an elevated velocity through a course by reducing the speed of the articles in a critical region of the course without reducing the overall effective operational speed of the system. One such system is shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,487,354 granted Nov. 8, 1949 to W. L. McNamara, et al. in which, in the critical region of the system, the articles are moved into double rows in staggered array whereby they can be conveyed at a reduced speed and returned to the normal higher velocity after emerging from the critical region thereby preserving the high speed operation of the system.
Systems such as that described in the McNamara et al. patent are designed for a continuous, uninterrupted flow of articles through the system and do not contemplate metering can delivery on a periodic start-stop basis as is required for delivering cans as "can sticks" of a predetermined can number to a sterilized carrier. Furthermore, conveying systems such as that described by McNamara et al are of a configuration rendering it unsuitable for use in a feed processing system of the type with which the present invention is concerned.
It is to the development, therefore, of an improved container handling apparatus for use in high speed food processing systems to which the present invention is directed.